As the new president and CEO of Provident Bank, Jack Kopnisky brings a successful 32-year history in the financial industry and a knack for stimulating growth in the companies for which he has worked.
It was a quick transition from retiring President/CEO George Strayton”™s departure from the bank he led for 25 years to Kopnisky taking over the  community bank July 6. The veteran banker spent the fourth quarter, which ended Sept. 30, assessing the bank”™s strengths and determining where more attention needs to be focused.
Kopnisky began his career at Signature Bank in Cleveland and was its president/CEO when it merged with KeyBank in the 1980s. He remained with the bank for the next 18 years, helping to build Key Corp.”™s national presence and was president of consumer banking when he was recruited to First Marblehead Corp., growing the private student loan institution to nearly $900 million a year in earnings. “Then in 2008, the world came crashing down,” said Kopnisky, “and securitization of student loans blew up.”
While he”™s kept busy in the private equity arena, the opportunity to become Provident”™s president and CEO was attractive to Kopnisky, who liked the bank”™s stability, solid credit qualifications and location.
“The Hudson Valley/metropolitan area is a center of wealth, with a healthy population and growth opportunities.”
He and his wife, Kathy, moved from Boston and Kopnisky returned to his community banking roots.
“Community banking has always appealed to me, because you connect with the customer more quickly than you do in a large multinational financial institution. From a strategic standpoint, I would like to grow Provident into a regional bank. It was designed with the ability to grow and that”™s where I come in. We are going to focus on owner-led business customers and focus on families on the consumer side. I believe we can bring real value to both segments.”
Kopnisky said Provident needs to grow its customer base. “To do that, we will expand the number of teams to seek out new business. I”™ve not just been familiarizing myself with the bank”™s financial status but getting ready to re-focus its mission and grow the bank”™s base. We”™re in the beginning of a new year, and I am determined to see Provident become more successful, attract new customers and focus on keeping our established and new depositors and borrowers satisfied. For our shareholders, it means a greater return on their investment.”
Kopnisky knows his long-range vision for Provident won”™t happen overnight. “Twenty percent of the work is strategy ”“ 80 percent is in the execution of that strategy.” To that end, all the bank”™s top-level executives were given a copy of “Execution: The Discipline of Getting Things Done,” written by Larry Bossidy and Ram Charan.
“It”™s a book that best exemplifies my philosophy, and the best way for the people I am working with to make that happen is for them to understand my vision for the bank.” In a nutshell, Kopnisky is a results-oriented person. “I don”™t want to hear about what is being planned or what can”™t be done … I just want to know when it is done. I”™m very much a metric-oriented person.”
Pittsburgh-born Kopnisky has been planning a company restructuring he expects will deliver optimum performance for the customers and increase shareholder earnings in the bank”™s 2011-12 year, which began Oct. 1. “There is a ton of opportunity to reward shareholders, distinguish our level of service, and show our employees how valuable they are and to partner with the community waiting for us to act on and move ahead in a positive direction. To me, CEO stands for customers, employees and owners.”
